A LETTER
A great deal had happened during the three weeks Frederick had been
gone. Helen Young had married Ebenezer Waldstricker, and they had been
away now nearly two weeks on their honeymoon. Deforrest Young, too, had
spent most of the time out of Ithaca. Tessibel Skinner heard from him
frequently, and through his good letters, she had been able to keep up
her studies.
One Monday morning while Tess was doing the simple chores around the
shack, she had the door open to admit the vagrant breezes of the summer
day. Andy, as his custom was on such occasions, lay quietly upon the
attic floor, secure from the observation of any chance passer-by.
Stepping to the door to shake her dust rag, Tess saw Jake Brewer coming
up the path.
"Hello, Jake," she called, a little loudly to warn Andy, "how air ye?"
"Pretty tol'able, thank ye, Tess," Brewer answered politely, "how air
you, and how's yer pa?"
"Daddy's pretty bad this mornin'," she told him, a reluctant smile
appearing for a moment at the corners of her mouth.
"Pshaw! Tessie, ye don't tell me. It air the heat, ain't it? But Tess, I
air got somethin' for you," he sniggered. "Bet ye can't guess what it
air."
"Sure, I can't, Jake." The girl tried to match his cheerful manner.
She wished she might greet her squatter friends as of yore, but her
heart was sad and lay stonelike in her breast. Of late, Jake had been
very kind, running many errands for her. Daddy Skinner was a favorite
with the inhabitants of the Silent City, and now that he was so ill, all
the other squatters did what they could for his sorrowing daughter.
"Come in, Jake," invited Tess. "Mebbe Daddy'd like to see ye.... He
ain't up yet.... Wait a minute.... I'll ask 'im!"
Jake stayed her with a chuckle and a beckoning motion of his forefinger.
"First I'll give ye what I brung ye, Tess," he said, while he fumbled in
his pocket. "Here! Look! It air a letter with a big ship up in the
corner of it.... Ain't it cute?"
Tessibel held out a trembling hand for the square envelope Brewer
proffered her. How many times within the past weeks had she visualized a
ship as it took its rapid way to the other side of the world! How many
times had she seen her husband with Madelene Waldstricker on that
pictured steamer! Now here it was before her very eyes, more stately
even than her mind had portrayed it. She stared at the letter, her face
going very white.
"Ye don't seem to be tickled, brat," said the squatter, grinning.
"I air, though, Jake," she replied, "awful tickled.... Come on in an'
see Daddy!"
She slipped the letter into her pocket and led the way to the back room.
She bent over the bed and roused her father.
"Jake air here to see ye, Daddy," she said. "Sit down, Jake! He can't
talk very loud, but ye can see he air awful glad to have ye here....
Daddy dear, Jake Brewer air tryin' to shake hands with ye."
Orn's great hand lifted slowly.
"Glad to see ye, Jake," he mumbled. "I ain't the best this mornin'!"
"Ye'll get better with the goin' of the warm weather," consoled Jake.
"These days be hot now for the wellest of us."
"Yep," murmured Daddy Skinner, drowsily.
Tessibel left the two men alone, and went back to the kitchen. Her
throat was filled with longing, her lips drawn a little closer together.
She sat down near the door, looking out upon the lake. She dared not
open the letter then, not until Jake had gone and Daddy was asleep.
Brewer came out quietly, his cheerful manner subdued somewhat.
Tess got to her feet. She tried to smile, but the serious expression on
the squatter's face brought her quickly to his side.
"Jake," she murmured, quick-breathed, "ye think he air awful sick, eh?"
Brewer shifted his gaze out through the door. The sight of the girl's
pleading face hurt him.
"He ain't real pert; that air a fact," was his reply.
"We air doin' everythin' we can think of," Tess told him. "Mr. Young's
doctor comes awful often, an' he says Daddy air got heart trouble."
"He do seem to have a hard time breathin'," answered Jake, trying to be
cheerful; "but if I was you, Tessie, I wouldn't worry. He'll be gettin'
well. He air stronger'n a horse."
Tess wanted to believe her father was better. She couldn't allow her
mind to take any other view of it.
"He air always been right rugged," she said, nodding, "an' if his
heart'd only stop beatin' so hard--" She hesitated and touched Brewer's
arm. "Thank ye fer bringin' my letter," she interrupted herself
irrelevantly.
"That air all right, Tess," smiled Brewer. "Ye see when I go to the
Postoffice fer our mail, I ask fer your'n an' fer Longman's, an' I most
allers get some fer one or t'other.... Nice day, eh, ain't it?"
"Yep," affirmed Tess, dully. She bade the fisherman good-bye and stood
watching him take his way along the lakeside until he had disappeared.
When she turned she caught sight of Andy's glistening eyes looking at
her.
"Jake air a good feller, ain't he, brat?" he asked.
Tess came directly under the ceiling hole.
"Yep, he sure air," she answered. "Andy, I air a feelin' so bad today.
Will ye listen for Daddy if I go out a spell?"
"Course I will, go long," he urged. "Close the door when ye go out. I'll
keep my ears open."
Tess walked slowly along the lake shore path, her head drooping wearily.
She knew the letter in her pocket was from Frederick. To have opened it
even before Andy's loving eyes, or in the presence of any other person,
would have been, in her opinion, a desecration.
Against the high gray shoulder of a ragged rock, she sat down pensively.
It was here she and Frederick had spent so many happy hours and, now,
alone, she had come to read his letter. She took it slowly from her
pocket, studied the picture of the ship in the corner, and whispered
over and over the name under it. It seemed almost impossible to tear it
open. What had he told her? She pressed the envelope to her lips. Her
darling's hands had touched it, his fingers had written her name upon
it. Ripping it slowly along the edge, she took out the contents, and
there fluttered to the rock a yellow backed bill. Tess picked it up and
examined it carefully. Frederick had sent her some money. Tess laid it
down again and placed a small stone upon it. Then she took up the
letter.
For a few seconds her eyes misted so profusely she could not read. She
dashed the back of her hand across her lids, choking down hard sobs that
rose insistently. When she could control her emotions enough to read,
she fixed her eyes upon the first words: "My own darling:"
Crunching the paper between her fingers, she dropped her head and wept
wildly for several minutes. She wanted Frederick then as she had never
wanted a soul in all the living world.
"I am here alone in the writing room," Tess read on, wiping her eyes.
"Oh, Tessibel, when I think of you there without me, I go almost mad!
What I've done seems the very worst thing in the world, and it grows
worse as the hours go by. Forgive me, my darling. I dared not come back
after that night; I was afraid some one would see me and tell my mother
or some of the Waldstrickers. Tessibel, if I could only jump into the
sea and get back to you, I should be the happiest fellow in the world. I
love you more and more, and I'm perfectly miserable without you."
Her fingers on her lips, and her eyes on the letter, Tess wept softly.
Oh, how she loved him, too, her husband.
"I won't stay away very long, my dearest," the letter continued. "I'm
coming back to you and shall never leave you again. I'm sending you some
money which I want you to use, and I'll send more very soon. This will
make you comfortable for a little while."
Tess picked up the bill and looked at it once more. Then she put it down
again and went on reading the letter.
"I shall always love you better than any one else in the world,
Tessibel ... when I return we shall be together most of the time. I shall,
I hope, get over my fear of Ebenezer Waldstricker. I'm studying in my mind
a way to make it possible for us to have a home together, of which no
one shall know. Believe that I love you ... always and always, my
darling.
Your
Frederick."
Tess lifted her head with a long-drawn sigh. But there was something
more to read, a line or two tacked on the end of the letter.
"P. S. My darling, I want you to burn this! I fear some one might get
hold of it.
F."
After reading over and over the letter, until she had almost learned it
by heart, she went back to the shanty, to do as Frederick had bidden
her. Kissing the pages again and again and weeping softly so as not to
disturb Andy, Tess burned the letter.
That night when Daddy Skinner was sleeping, his laboring breath heard
plainly through the shanty, a red-brown head bent over the kitchen
table. Around the flickering light fluttered the summer moths, and once
in a while one of Tessibel's beloved night things dashed in at the
window, took a zig-zag course about the lamp, and flew out again into the
shadowy weeping willows. A long, sobbing sigh from the girl brought the
dwarf's eager face to the hole in the ceiling.
"Air ye sick, brat?" he whispered.
Tess lifted her eyes from the table.
"Nope, Andy, I were thinkin', that's all," she answered, low-toned.
And perhaps fifteen minutes later, when she had written a name on
several envelopes and had torn them up in seeming disapproval, Andy
ventured again.
"Ye act awful sad, brat dear. Can't ye tell me about it?"
Tessibel rose to her feet, the gleam of the night light radiating upon
the red-brown of her eyes. She swallowed the lump in her throat before
she could speak.
"I air a little sad, Andy dear," she murmured.
"What were ye doin', honey?" asked the dwarf.
Without answering at that moment, Tess took up the envelope she'd
sealed. Two steps took her to the mantel, where she placed the letter
against the clock, standing a minute to gaze at it. The next instant she
explained to the little man leaning above her.
"I were writin' a little, Andy, darlin'."
Then she went softly into Daddy Skinner's room and closed the door.